6 yr old is starting to gag on food ?

Kayla - posted on 02/20/2012

Glad to hear it. Sounds like they are doing exactly what I thought they would do. I questioned if she may be having mild aspiration, but I didn't want to alarm you. When my daughter was one I took her to the hospital and refuses to except the docs answer to her constant upper respitory infection as just a preemie lung thing. Well they did an upper GI and immediately stopped it and called the doc down to the room to show her and talk to me. The first swallow she took from the bottle of chalk stuff they gave her went half in the wind pipe and the other down the right pipe! Come to find out severe acid reflux has eatin at the flaps to her wind pipe and weakened them so they couldn't seal properly when she drank. They said if I hadn't put my for down and demanded a different answer they probably wouldn't have discovered it till it had done way worse damage. They did a swollen study and decided all she needed was clear liquids thickened to nectar consistency and after that she never even got a cold. In January 2010 they did another swollow study and discovered that thickening her drinks and giving daily acid reflux meds fixed and healed the problem. Now the only struggle we have is getting her to eat good. That's why we are going speech now.

Dionne - posted on 02/20/2012

Yes i took her to the Drs and she is gong to have a swollowing assessment done with a speech therapist :) she is on an acid reflux med to see if that helps and so far so good with that. Ill keep in touch as to what happens :) Thx for the reply cause I havent heard of anyone else with this kinda issue

Kayla - posted on 02/20/2012

Bring this to your pediaticians attention. My 4yr old has issues with eating and has been referred to a GI and speech therapy to help her get past it. Pay attention to what foods it's with and you will see a definite pattern to certain textures. Most children have it start from birth, others can develop a sensory issue to textures. I know she's nervous about the doc, but they won't be invasive about how they correct the issue. She definitely sounds like she could use some speech therapy to work past this. They slowly work on building a tolerance for the things she has been choking on. At this point figure out what textures she CAN tolerate and allow her to stick to those foods till you can get her some help with the ones she can't. My daughter isn't a fan of docs and can have a bit of an attitude with them, but when it comes to her therapist she is excited to go and loves her time this them even though it's working on things she doesn't like doing. Good luck mom and be patient. It sounds like this isn't a rebellious thing, which a lot of people can chalk it up to.